Learning to Fly
by gkmoberg1
Summary: Silverpaw, Shade, Marigold and their clan endure a winter snowstorm and match wits with an invader who arrives from above.
1. Prologue

[ This is a continuation from my story 'Gravel and Dust'. This takes place in the same general location about six months later. Enjoy! Reviews welcome! ( This prologue was first written as the epilogue to Gravel and Dust. But I felt G&D was complete as it was. Plus, the style and message differed slightly but enough so that I felt it did not belong there. So, out of that I was left with this extra piece, which has grown now to be the start of a new story. ) ]

Shade sat and watched the moon come up late into the night sky. The moon shone brightly but was soon overrun by low clouds building in and extending across the sky. She turned and padded into the Warrior's Den. There at the back lay the most precious creature she had ever known: Silverpelt. The young she-cat lay curled up in a ball beside her mother. Marigold too was fast asleep. In the failing last rays of moonlight that filtered gently down through the bracken and to the floor of the sleeping area, the two looked identical. Mother and child slept and looked like larger and smaller copies of the other.

To Shade the sight of her apprentice filled her with pride. Yet it was more than that. What stirred within her was more than simple caring for her sister's daughter. It was joy. It was elation. It was a well of emotion that could catch her off guard, as it was doing at this moment; a well so intense she felt she could burst out with a purr that would wake the assembled company. Everything Shade had come to know in her life was being seen born anew through her time with this budding, precious eleven month old Warrior apprentice. The spirit and curiosity that woke up daily between her and Marigold was an eruption of life that shook the wise mentor and found her seeing each day's events as a refreshed stream of enticing discoveries, eagerly assaulted by Silverpaw's clever and curious mind. Shade had no idea how she had made her way through life without Silverpaw by her side. Certainly there had been years between her own birth and that of her apprentice. But whatever they had contained they seemed distant and almost empty in stark comparison to her life now with this young she-cat. There was no going back. A cut had been made in her life. Silverpaw's presence redefined everything to her.

Shade crossed carefully over to them. She turned and settled into her nest, adjacent to her sleeping apprentice and just opposite from Marigold. Shade lay with her head on her forepaws, watching Silverpelt's face. It was quiet now, relaxed. As Shade fell asleep she ran over the day's events, wondered what tomorrow would bring, and drifted away with the image of her niece floating before her closing eyes.


	2. Chapter 1

Morning approached. The night sky moved from pitch black to a dark gray. It should have continued from there to a lighter gray but the winter day was overcast and heavy with impending snow. A chill wind rustled through the forest. The bare trees rattled against one another and against themselves. The movement snapped a few dried branches and helped loose some of the remaining brown leaves that still clung to where they had grown last year.

A family of mice on the forest floor sniffed, smelled the approaching storm, and scurried back, into the tunnels, and down to their burrow.

BrownStreak, a squirrel of nearly two years, felt the first flakes and repositioned himself within his nest of leaves. He was all set, about halfway up a tall pine, having found a hollow in the main trunk where an owl had lived long ago.

A fisher moved stealthily along the bracken wall that bordered the pine forest. It used a run it had created just behind the wall of thorns and twigs. To one side lay the forest floor. To the other side stretched a wild grassy field. The border area that ran along the meeting to these two areas was thick with the bracken and the fisher used this to watch both sides as it traveled along. Today though would be less about hunting and more about survival. Flash could smell the approaching snow and knew to make preparations. She kept several burrows at the ready and the one she was approaching had not been used much this winter. It would be a good place to retreat into and see how the storm developed. Snow could be a curse but also a blessing. The hunter within her knew both sides of the equation, knew them well.

Silverpaw stretched in her sleep. She roused briefly, long enough to scent the presence of Marigold and Shade. She then fell back to sleep. Having never seen snow before she did not know its telltale signs.

Far above Flash, BrownStreak, Silverpaw and the mice a head turned. It had seen them all and knew all. It knew where they were hiding. It could judge their size and skill. And it knew how they would taste. With a slow sidestep a foot of claws released pressure on the swaying branch and moved a small distance closer to the trunk. The claws retightened their grip. The other foot did the same. The pattern was repeated and slowly and quietly Stormcloud moved against the tree where he would wait through the coming snow. He shifted his shoulders and repositioned his wings so as to better protect himself.

The first flakes began to fall. They came swirling in on the breeze, quiet and clean. There was little time between the transition. The pre-dawn forest scene was swallowed quickly from a vision of trees and bushes standing the in dark grey light into an envelope of white dancing waves of snowflakes. The mice found their burrow covered over almost immediately. They would be safe in their lair beneath the descending white carpet. The squirrel and the fisher watched from their respective dens as the visibility deteriorated to nothing. Shade awoke as the flakes started the settle on the holly bush that made roof overtop the warrior's den. Silverpaw slept. And Stormcloud turned his head away from the wind and stinging snow and snoozed beneath his great wings and his layers and layers of feathers.

The snow descended and the day remained dark. Quiet and long the day passed and the snow rose all through the forest and across the wild grassy field.


End file.
